Cool Geo-Pic: Sulfur Dioxide from Okmok Volcano

Sulfur Dioxide from Okmok Volcano
Click here to view full image (2533 kb)

"Cut & Paste" Highlights:

On July 12, 2008, Okmok Volcano, in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands erupted, releasing a plume of ash and steam. Besides emissions visible to human eyes, Okmok also released sulfur dioxide, a gas our eyes cannot see, but which can affect both human health and climate.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite measured the sulfur dioxide from Okmok Volcano from July 12-20, 2008. This image shows the estimated sulfur dioxide at altitudes around 16 kilometers (10 miles) released by the volcano over that time span, with red indicating the highest levels, and pale pink indicating the lowest. The sulfur dioxide was most intense southeast of the volcano, but lower levels spread both to the south and east, forming a large L shape, and spreading over parts of the continental United States and Canada...."

Full Article:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18098

Credits:

Image courtesy Fred Prata, NILU. Caption by Michon Scott and Rebecca Lindsey.

Cool Geo-Pic: Earth and the Moon

Cool Geo-Pic: Earth and the Moon

Click here to view animation (525 kb)

Animations
True-color high quality (9.5 MB QuickTime)
True-color web quality (530 kB QuickTime)
Infrared high quality (10.3 MB QuickTime)
Infrared web quality (570 kB QuickTime)

Another from NASA's Earth Observatory.

"Cut & Paste" Highlights:

" ... Among the leading criteria for habitable planets is the presence of liquid water. How would you know from a distance of 10 million or more miles that Earth had oceans? “A ‘sun glint’ can be seen in the movie, caused by light reflected from Earth’s oceans, and similar glints [if they were observed] from extra-solar planets could indicate alien oceans, ..."

Full Article:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18096

References:

NASA. (2008, July 17). NASA’s Deep Impact Films Earth as an Alien World. Accessed July 21, 2008.
NASA images and animation courtesy EPOXI science team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey, adapted from the NASA press release.

Cool Geo-Pic: Cordillera Huayhuash, Peruvian Andes

Another Cool Geo-Pic from NASA's Earth Observatory & the ISS crew.


Cordillera Huayhuash, Peruvian Andes: Click here to view full image (401 kb)


"Cut & Paste" highlights:
" ... Widely considered the most spectacular peak in South America, Yerupajá is so steep that it has seldom been climbed. The best climbing approach is from the southwest, the face seen in this view. Yerupajá is locally known as El Carnicero (“The Butcher”) because of its blade-like ridges, typical of mountains that have been heavily eroded by glacial ice. Other features created by the erosive effect of flowing ice are small glacial lakes, which often vary in color due to different amounts of fine mud being fed into them by meltwater from under the glaciers. During the ice ages, the glaciers advanced many kilometers outward from the cordillera, occupying all the surrounding valley floors (all of which lie above 3,000 meters), producing U-shape valleys.... "

Full Article:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18093

Save My Airport!

________________________________________________________________________

The Business Travel Coalition has created a website, Save My Airport!, that’s intended to spotlight the risk to smaller markets and presumably to stir up civic opposition to the cuts. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________

At this website, BTC has put together a list of 50 larger airports at risk of having service sharply curtailed and 100 smaller airports that could even see service eliminated completely.

Top 50 Large City Airports at Risk

Top 100 Regional Airports at Risk

Cool Geo-Pic: Formation and Decay of Hurricane Bertha

Another Cool Geo-Pic from NASA's Earth Observatory.

now living in Florida nearly sixteen years, you appreciate the power of the massive storms with your livelihood in mind.

Large images
July 4, 2008 (238 kB JPEG)
July 7, 2008 (212 kB JPEG)
July 9, 2008 (181 kB JPEG)
July 13, 2008 (136 kB JPEG)

Cut & Paste" Highlights:

"... This series of images chronicles the development and decay of the first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricane Bertha. The images were taken by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, which uses microwave and radar sensors to see both the swirling clouds and bands of rain that define the structure of the storm...."

Click Here to Read Full Article

References:
National Hurricane Center. Hurricane Bertha advisory archive. Accessed July 15, 2008.
Roberts, E. and McFadden, D. (2008, July 15). Tropical Storm Bertha rakes Bermuda. Associated Press. Accessed July 15, 2008.
Images produced by Hal Pierce and caption by Steve Lang and Holli Riebeek.

Cool Geo-Pic: Dakar, Senegal

Another Cool Geo-Pic from NASA's Earth Observatory.

There is something striking about the coast edges that makes this image intriguing.

Click here to view full image (1352 kb)

"Cut & Paste Description" Highlights:
" ....In 2008, one out of every four people living in Senegal lived in the coastal capital of Dakar. Over previous decades, the city spread over the Cap Vert Peninsula as a result of both migration and growing families. In the 1940s, the city occupied just the southern tip of the peninsula. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, cityscape had sprawled both northward and eastward..... "

Click Here for Full Article

References:
United Nations Environment Programme. (2008). Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment. Division of Early Warning and Assessment, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.
Hopkins, B. (2008). Birding in the Dakar area. Seawatching in Senegal.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data provided by the United States Geological Survey. Caption by Michon Scott.

Cool Geo-Pic: Toshka Lakes, Egypt

Another cool geo-pic from NASA's Earth Observatory.

I like the idea of shift and drowning dunes.

Click here to view full image (415 kb)

"Cut & Paste" Highlights:
" ... In the late 1990s, Egypt’s new manmade Toshka Lakes, fed from Lake Nasser via a canal, grew and spilled into new basins to become four major and two smaller lakes. These lakes extended 120 kilometers across the desert west of the Nile River in southern Egypt. Starting in 2002, astronauts have seen the lakes slowly decline, with the telltale ring of darker, moistened ground showing the previous higher water levels (see prior comparison of astronaut imagery of the lakes). The rise and fall of Toshka Lakes and the economic development surrounding the region are dependent on climate fluctuations and water agreements with upstream countries that, in turn, determine the long-term water flow in the lower Nile.

In the late 1990s, Egypt’s new manmade Toshka Lakes, fed from Lake Nasser via a canal, grew and spilled into new basins to become four major and two smaller lakes. These lakes extended 120 kilometers across the desert west of the Nile River in southern Egypt. Starting in 2002, astronauts have seen the lakes slowly decline, with the telltale ring of darker, moistened ground showing the previous higher water levels (see prior comparison of astronaut imagery of the lakes). The rise and fall of Toshka Lakes and the economic development surrounding the region are dependent on climate fluctuations and water agreements with upstream countries that, in turn, determine the long-term water flow in the lower Nile.... "

Click Here for Full Article

Cool Geo-Pic: Southern Ocean Carbon Sink

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is an interesting consequence of weather - low carbon absorbtion. As weather patterns may increase to extremes with global climate change - recalcs to absorbtion rates seem re need "rethinking".

Click here to view full image (84 kb)

Cut & Paste Highlights:

" ... As people have put more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the ocean has responded by soaking up more carbon dioxide—a trend scientists expected to continue for many years. But in 2007, a team of scientists reported in the journal Science that between 1981 and 2004 carbon dioxide concentrations in the Southern Ocean didn’t change at all, even though global atmospheric levels continued to rise. This graph shows the changes scientists expected to see (blue line) compared to their estimate of actual carbon dioxide absorption (red line). The results suggested that the Southern Ocean was no longer keeping pace with human carbon dioxide emissions."

Full Article - click here

Data Display - Change in Airline Service

• This interactive map is a great mix of two of my passions; the intelligent display of complex data and air travel.

Full credits to USA Today, asn William Coauch, Barbara Hansen and Anne Carey who put this together.

• Link to Full article:

Cool GeoPic: Recent Ocean Level Change

Well, so now we know where is started....

Cut & Paste Highlights:

" ... Unlike the water in a sink or a bathtub, the water level in Earth’s oceans is not the same everywhere; sea level varies with location and time. On time spans of hours to days, sea level is influenced by tides, winds, and waves, including storm surges. Sea level rises when oceans warm, and it drops when they cool (because water expands when it heats up and contracts when it cools). Regional variations in sea level can persist for many years, even a decade. Underlying all these changes is the slower rise and fall in global average sea level as ice ages recede and advance over millenia.

This map shows global patterns of changes in sea level (sea surface height) measured by satellite-based altimeters (Topex and Jason 1 satellites) from 1993 through the end of 2007. Places where the sea surface height increased up to 225 millimeters (about 8.9 inches) are shown in dark red; places where sea level dropped are blue. The most widespread change in sea level over this time period was an increase in the Western Pacific sea surface height. During the period spanned by this image, a climate pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation was in its warm phase, and sea surface temperatures were above average in much of the basin. Thermal expansion during this warm phase would be consistent with a rise in sea level...."

Full Article:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18075